These are the kind of animals that have only one purpose at this week’s Canadian Finals Rodeo, which gets underway Wednesday night at Rexall Place: throwing cowboys into orbit or planting them headfirst in the ground.

And yet these are the kind of rodeo stock that the cowboys want — the harder they buck the better.

“You want the tough ones,” said Bracken, Saskatchewan saddle bronc rider Rylan Geiger, who comes into the CFR in first-place.

“You want the ones that are going to buck and kick hard because those are the ones that are going to give you the most points if you ride them.”

“If” being the operative word, of course.

At the head of this week’s CFR class are a five-year-old bull named Up Tight and an eight-year-old saddle bronc horse named Lunatic Party.

Up Tight was ridden only once this year — by Ponoka’s Zane Lambert for 88-1/2 points at the Calgary Stampede — while Lunatic Party was ridden just four times.

Both are owned by stock contractor Outlaw Buckers Rodeo Group; both were voted Canadian champions, the second year in a row for Lunatic Party.

“Shoot, Up Tight is always tough,” said Lambert. “To be the only one to ride him this year is pretty cool.

“He just bucks so hard all the time, which is why he bucks guys off.”

Lambert, however, believes Up Tight will be ridden again this week.

“That’s my prediction,” said Lambert. “And whoever does it is going to win first.

“There are other bulls that have harder tricks to them, there are other bulls that are more famous, but Up Tight is just consistently good all the time.”

Leaving the chute, he blows out in a cloud of dust.

“He leaves real fast,” Rod Schellenberg, one of the Outlaw Buckers partners said of the 680-kilogram Up Tight, which is actually on the small side for a bucking bull. “He leaves so quick that guys get behind him. Then they are in trouble and down they come.

“He comes out bucking right out of the chute and he stays bucking right to the end.”

“He doesn’t get any easier as the ride goes on,” concurred Jesse Torkelson, who has been bucked off Up Tight the only two times he has got on him.

“I don’t think I lasted four seconds in total on those two trips.”

Torkelson said one of the problems with riding Up Tight is that you really don’t know which way he will turn.

“Most of the time he will turn to the left but he can turn to the right as well so you really don’t know what trip he will give you.”

Lunatic Party, who isn’t very tall but is wide and thick, isn’t as unpredictable. But like Up Tight, she’s a money maker.

“She’s the one you want,” said Geiger, who rode Lunatic Party for 88 points at Ponoka earlier this year.

“She gives you lots of hang time. And she’s really flashy.

“On her good days she feels so good but on other days she will give you an eliminator trip with a bunch of ducks and dives.”

Bruce Flewelling, another partner in Outlaw Buckers’ string of 100 bulls and some 125 horses, said there are usually only two outcomes when it comes to Lunatic Party: first or last.

“If you make the eight-second whistle you are going to win first. Otherwise, she will buck you off and you get nothing.”

Flewelling said that away from the rodeo arena both Up Tight, who has no horns, and Lunatic Party are extremely docile.

“You can go up to Up Tight and pet him when he’s on the ranch. Same with Lunatic Party. She’s almost like a pet at home. Even at the rodeo you can scratch her neck 10 minutes before she goes into the chute. And five minutes after she performs you can scratch her again.”

But when it’s time to buck both animals are like Jekyll and Hyde.

“They’re both like human athletes. It’s like a runner stepping into the blocks or a speed skater going to the starting line,” said Flewelling.

“Then the adrenalin kicks in. Then they do what they are supposed to do: buck hard and buck often, because that is what they are bred to do.”